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5 Home Hacks That Will Help You Sleep Better at Night

Let’s face it -- we’re most worried about intruders when we turn the lights off at night and our heads hit our pillows. Possible break-in threats can sometimes cause enough anxiety to prevent you from getting a good night’s sleep. While a good home security system may help prevent someone from breaking in, there are still some cool things you can do to make sure that a home intruder doesn’t even get that far. Here are five home hacks that may help you sleep a little better at night:

Prevent Lock-Bumping

It’s fairly common for burglars and thieves to mess with a regular door’s locks to enter without causing any damage. They do this by “lock-bumping,” a trick similar to lock-picking that works by inserting a key, ground to make small peaks, and then striking it with a heavy object to jam the lock’s pins up and allow entrance. Many homeowners and renters don’t know about this trick, so naturally, they don’t take measures to help prevent people from doing it. If you utilize some quick hacks, however, you can help assure that nobody will be lock-bumping their way into your home anytime soon.
Go to your home improvement store and get an anti-bumping specific door lock or even consider buying an electric or magnet lock. These electric or magnetic locks might be a little more expensive than you’d like, so installing an overhead light for the doorway could act as an additional deterrent.

Deceive Burglars

Sure, you may leave a nightlight on at home to signal that someone is home, but don’t many people do this already? When burglars see a fairly dark house with just a few lights on, that’s basically a given that everyone is in bed and asleep -- and bedtime is often primetime for intruders to break in and take care of their business.
That being said, you want to actually deceive possible intruders into thinking you’re not only home, but that you’re also awake. Certain gadgets like this Fake TV® light are designed to give the impression that somebody is home and watching a movie or late night talk show. Burglars want to get in and out without any hassle. If they think you’re home, they aren’t very likely to attempt breaking in.

Protect Your Wi-Fi

Intruders come in more than just their physical form. Internet hackers can break into a Wi-Fi connection, watch what you’re doing online and even see which sites you’ve visited. Sometimes they’ll use keystroke logging (the act of capturing what someone is typing on their keyboard), which can lead to those behind the operation gaining access to your personal information and the usernames and passwords for the websites you visit.
To avoid Internet hackers from getting into your Wi-Fi, make sure you’re helping to protect your routers by setting a password or encryption (which happens to be far more secure). You can also hide your SSID number and essentially make your Wi-Fi network invisible to outsiders. Just be sure to keep all that information somewhere because you may have to enter everything in manually if you lose connection. You might also consider installing a firewall to help stop any viruses or intruders from gaining access to your computer or Wi-Fi system.

Beef Up Your Windows

Windows are generally an easy point of entrance. While broken windows are a common aspect of home break-ins, it doesn’t mean you have to allow it to happen to you. 3M™ window film is used to beef up window security by keeping glass from shattering. It comes in different grades and can even come tinted, but the main goal of each one is to condense shattering of glass while still upholding the integrity of the entire pane. The window film is applied directly on the glass and is a sturdy, nearly impossible-to-tear substance. It’s relatively inexpensive and can make all the difference in the event that somebody tries to break into your home. Get these on all of your windows, and you can rest easy knowing that you’ve essentially created as sturdy of a fortress as you’ll find without a moat.

Disguise Your Safe

If you’re a homeowner or renter, hopefully you’ve already invested in a safe. Safes are great for helping keep people out, but if safes get stolen, you’re still out of whatever money or valuables you had inside. When thinking about the safety of your valuables and cash, consider hiding them in creative places. Hide your cash in a rolled up sock and put it at the bottom of your sock drawer. Place valuables in Ziploc bags and put them inside the grille at the bottom of your fridge. You can even find quirky products like this that are specifically designed to hide things from unwanted guests and thieves.
Installing an elaborate home security system is certainly a wise decision; but isn’t it nice to know that you’re capable of doing things to help protect yourself? By examining every aspect of your home, you’ll be able to tackle issues that can only be solved with a certain “human element.” Not every burglar or thief acts the same way, so it’s never a bad idea to cover all your bases.

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